Fox Airs Third Segment In Two Days Bashing Gender Diversity Lesson

May 27, 2011 7:04 pm ET by Carlos Maza

On
Friday, Fox News ran its third segment in
forty-eight hours focusing gender diversity lessons recently
introduced into a California elementary school in an
effort to reduce anti-LGBT bullying. (Here is our coverage of
the first and second of the
segments.)

Hate group president
Tony Perkins and the president of the anti-gay Pacific Justice Institute Brad
Dacus appeared in
the previous segments to discuss the new lessons and gin up
fears of gay “indoctrination” in public schools

For the third
segment, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream brought in this "power panel":
attorney and former
The Apprentice contestant Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, AOL financial columnist Regina Lewis and China Okasi, founder
of Madame Noire, a lifestyle guide for
African-American women.

Noticeably absent from the
“power panel”: anybody with any expertise ongender
identity, sexual orientation, school bullying, or child education.

This should go well:

In less than three minutes,
the “power panel” accused teachers of trying to “advance” an “alternative
lifestyle” for young kids, partially blamed LGBT diversity lessons for
America’s education gap with China, and denied that kids were really being
bullied based on gender.

Let’s break it down.

Saeidi-Azcuy began the discussion by accusing the school’s
teachers of trying to "advance an alternative lifestyle":

SAEIDI-AZCUY:
[I]t seems
to me that they’re using gender diversity and the animal kingdom as a way of
advancing alternative lifestyle to, you know, these elementary school kids, and
that’s not okay with me. I think this topic is a good thing for the appropriate
age group and the appropriate biology class, but right now I feel like they’re
using to advance an-- you know, the alternative lifestyle.
That’s wrong.

Like Perkins during the
previous day’s segment, Saeidi-Azcuy alluded to a typical right-wingfear about pro-LGBT school programs: thattalking about being gay or transgender
will make kids want to be gay and transgender. She conflates teaching kids that
LGBT exist with encouraging kids to
actively participate in an “alternative lifestyle.”

She also claimed that
“this topic” isn’t appropriate for young children, despite the fact that the
lessons are tailored to
particular age groups. Either she isn’t aware of what the diversity program
actually involves (which wouldn’t be surprising, considering the makeup for the
“power panel”) or she believes, like many on the right do, that homosexuality
and transgender issues are neveran appropriate subject for
children; that LGBT issues are somehow wrong, unnatural or taboo
and need to be kept out of the minds of innocent children.

Later in the
panel, Lewis championed an argument made during Fox’s first segment on the
story: that there’s just not
enough time to learn about LGBT people:

LEWIS:
[A]ctually,
I think you also have to look at the opportunity cost. One person posted a
comment on one of the San Francisco newspaper blogs that said, you know, how
much time do you think in Chinese classrooms they’re spending on transgender
issues as we get passed in the left lane on science and math and things like
that. So I do think you have to look at the role of the school.

We debunked this claim in a
previous post, so I’ll make this quick. The gender diversity lesson took a grand total of one hour. The
school which
administered the lessonconsistently outperforms other
schools in the state and has done so for years.

Taken to its logical
endpoint, Lewis’s argument would justify eliminating all anti-bullying and
pro-diversity programs in public schools, including lessons about racial
tolerance, equal treatment for women, and respect for people with disabilities.

But that's
obviously absurd. The roleof
schools should include promoting safe and welcoming school environments,
especially when doing so can significantly reduce the rate of suicide and mental
and physical health problems among LGBT students.

Okasi rounds out the show by
claiming that kids aren’t bullied because of gender (but after admitting that she has no idea what
she’s talking about):

OKASI:
I mean, I
have three degrees. I didn’t understand anything that he was talking about. I
was like “what are you saying?”

BREAM: Maybe we need to hear
the lecture.

OKASI:
I know. I’m like, “What is-- what is
the point of this?” Kids do not-- Bullying
is such an excuse because kids do not bully each other based on gender. They
bully each other based on, you know, all sorts of things, not just
gender. So using that seems to me like an excuse really.

Acore component of
the right-wings campaign to stop pro-LGBT school programs is its claim that
gender-based bullying doesn't exist, so Okasi’s assertion isn’t actually all
that surprising. But in the real world, gender is one of the key
justifications used for bullying LGBT students. Transgender students are targeted for
failing to conform to their birth sex. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual students are
similarly targeted for failing to conform to traditional understandings of
gender; gay males act “too girly,” while gay females are “too butch” or
“manly.”

According to a 2011 study, 61 percent of students who expressed a
transgender identity or gender non-conformity at school reported “considerable
abuse,” including harassment, assault or expulsion.” A
2010 study conducted
by GLSEN found that 84.6 percent of LGBT middle and high school students reported
being verbally harassed, 40 percent reported being physically harassed, and
18.8 percent reported being
physically assaulted at school due to their sexual orientation. LGBT youth who
fail to conform to traditional gender norms are at significantly elevated risk of being targeted in schools and
of
eventually attempting suicide.

Saeidi-Azcuy decided to round
out the show by asserting that these kinds of programs don’t actually reduce bullying:

SAEIDI-AZCUY: And I don’t
think it stops bullying. I don’t think talking about this diversity in the
animal kingdom-- I don’t think it’s actually going to stop or prevent kids from
bullying each other. I don’t think it’s going to work either.

She offers not a shred of
evidence, or even an explanation, for her claim. In a few sentences,
Saeidi-Azcuy attempted to
totally discredit the effectiveness of programs that teach kids to respect and
appreciate gender diversity.

This is what
passes for a "fair and balanced" segment on Fox News: a discussion between three people who know
nothing about anti-bullying programs but feel comfortable attacking them on
national television.